Process and apparatus for reproducing a musical score



April 7, 1970 T.S. WAGNER- ET AL 3,504,613 PROCESS AND APPARATUS FOR REPRODUCING A MUSICAL SCORE v F'iled'Jan so, 1967 I r 26 gin/5X24 Q 2/ IN VENTORS I iEi. 4. HOMAS swmm y REGS BENOIT "L.

United States Patent 3,504,613 PROCESS AND APPARATUS FOR REPRODUCING A MUSICAL SCORE Thomas S. Wagner, 250 W. 85th St. 10024, and Regis Benoit, 170 W. 74th St. 10023, both of New York,

u Filed Jan. 30, 1967, Ser. No. 612,478

Int. Cl. G03b 15/00 US. Cl. 95--85 12 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A musical score is reproduced by manually arranging in overlapping relation a set of symbol-bearing transparent elements carrying opaque musical symbols thereon. The symbol-bearing elements have a pressure-sensitive soft wax adhesive backing to enable them to be removable secured to a light-transmitting base. The resulting arrangement is then photographed on a reduced scale with a camera on one side of the arrangement and a light source on the opposite side. The light passes from the back of the arrangement, through the base, and through the multiplicity of layers of elements and their pressure-sensitive backings. From the photographic copies, printing plates, such as rot-ogravures or offset plates, can be made by conventional techniques.

This invention relates to the manufacture of printed musical scores.

Every printed music score starts from a rough pencil or pen draft by the composer. Before printing the score, it is necessary to reproduce the rough draft score by some technique which provides an attractive and readable version of the score from which printing plates can be made. To date, there are essentially only three diiferent techniques employed to reproduce rough scores.

The first discussed technique involves typography. This comprises typing a copy of the rough score on paper on which is printed the music staff. This technique is very time consuming. Also it is incapable of placing on the staff all of the music symbols used in a score. For example, the beams and slurs, which are common music symbols, are put on the staff by printing or hand drawing. Even then, several typewriters are needed to provide all the symbols for a given score, A further significant deficiency of this technique resides in the inability to see a whole sheet of music while typing. Thus, it is virtually impossible to lay out the score on a page to achieve an artistic effect and to create a page of music that is easy to read and play from. In addition, the end product, i.e. the

v typed, printed, and hand-drawn page, possesses hazy edges about the symbols making the score uncomfortable to read and work from. Corrections to the reproduced score are very time consuming to perform, and in many cases adversely affecting the overall appearance of the reproduction. Also, several years of apprenticeship are usually needed before the operator acquires the skill required for making acceptable music scores by typography.

3,504,613 Patented Apr. 7, 1970 A second technique employed for reproducing crudely drafted music scores involves artistic rendering of the score on pre-lined paper by an autographer. This technique suffers from being exceptionally slow and requiring unusually gifted artistic talent to achieve a high quality rendering. Moreover, if a mistake in rendering is made, it is most difficult and time consuming to correct.

A third technique involves hand engraving the music score on a lead or copper plate from which an offset printing plate is usually made. This technique yields the best quality reproductions but is exceptionally time consuming, partly because the engravers reproduce the score in reverse. Moreover, it takes a long time to correct mistakes made in the engraving and, quite often, corrections cause blurry lines and symbols defects. A long apprenticeship (e.g. 10 years or more) is needed to develop the skill required for hand engraving the music score.

Each of the above techniques provides renderings of the music score from which printing plates, such as oifset and rotogravure plates, can be produced. The plates are used in the final step of the process of reproduction to produce a printed sheet of the score.

These processes and their difficulties were discussed some years ago by Alissoff in US. Patent 182,624, Sept. 26, 1876. Over the years, other attempts have been made to set up musical scores by physically arranging musical characters and then photographing the arranged characters, as in the patent to Goodwin, 195,924 of Oct. 9, 1877, the patent to Cohen, 2,298,081 of 1942, and British Patent 22,112 of 1902, Danish Patent 68,460 of 1949, and French Patent 564,546 of 1924. However, aside from the above-mentioned use of the typewriter, by which lower quality musical scores are produced, the problems in the industry are still very much the same as those treated by Alissoff.

In accordance with one aspect of this invention, the musical score is physically created by a process in which a set of transparent film elements carrying musical symbols (whose size is a multiple of the size on the final printing plate) and having pressure-sensitive backings are laid onto a transparent film base and over one another in the desired arrangement, and the arrangement is then photographed on a reduced scale with the light passing, from the back, through the base, and through a multiplicity of layers of said elements and their pressure-sensitive backings. From the photographic copies, one can make printing plates, such as rotogravures or offset plates, by conventional techniques.

A preferred form of the invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic view, with parts broken away and parts in cross-section of a light box carrying a film base on which the film elements are to be arranged;

FIG. 2 is a composite view showing film elements bearing various musical symbols to be placed on the film base;

FIG. 3 comprises a series of views showing the succussive steps involved in making up a composite symbol having several overlapping elements;

FIG. 4 likewise comprises a series of views showing the successive steps involved in making up another composite symbol having several overlapping elements;

FIG. 5 is a broken-away view of a portion of a sheet bearing a number of identical symbols, before the sheet is cut to make individual film elements;

FIG. 6 is a schematic view of the photographing of the completely arranged score; and

FIG. 7 is an enlarged plan view illustrating the effects of overlapping of film elements.

In the preferred embodiment, the physical creation of the musical score is carried out on a light box 9 (FIG. 1) comprising a light source 11 and a translucent light-distributing support or lightboard 12, which is preferably made up of a flat layer 13 of light-distributing milky Lucite (polymethyl methacrylate) and a flat layer 14 of plate glass. The thickness of the various layers may, for example, be about inch for the Lucite and about A inch for the plate glass. The light box also has rear and side walls 16, 17 which may be painted a fiat white but, preferably, are covered with crumpled aluminum foil. The translucent support is preferably of large size, e.g. it may be a rectangle 4 x 4, and is mounted at a small angle (a) to the vertical, (e.g. about to 30 to the vertical) on suitable standards. I have found that by mounting this translucent support nearly vertical, it is much easier for the compositor to work at the light box and to cover any desired portion of the support.

The plate glass 14 is covered with a layer of translucent graph paper 18 having horizontal and vertical rulings spaced relatively close together; a A; inch spacing between lines has been found very suitable. A particularly suitable graph paper for this purpose is of the laminated type, having a layer of ruled paper sandwiched between two thin layers of transparent plastic (e.g. cellulose acetate or polyethylene terephthalate), and the lines may be of any desired color such as red, preferably, or light blue or light green. The graph paper may be firmly secured to the glass surface by means of a pressure sensitive wax, as will be described more fully below.

Over the graph paper there is laid a transparent film base 19. A particularly suitable material for this purpose is polyester (e.g. Mylar oriented polyethylene terephthalate) of each thickness (e.g. 5-10 mils, say 7 mils)that it lies flat, with no bends, on the light table. Limper film materials such as softer plasticized polyvinyl chloride films sometimes have a tendency to take a slightly wavy form which affects the quality of the final reproduction. It is also found that the use of such a relatively stifi film base desirably improves the adherence of the adhesive coated film elements.

The first step in the physical composing of the score is to lay down the five-line horizontal staffs which are printed on transparent film elements 21 (see FIGS. 3 and 4) having pressure-sensitive adhesive coatings. The rulings on the graph paper serve as guides for accurately positioning these elements so that the lines of the staffs are perfectly horizontal and the staffs are spaced apart by the desired predetermined vertical distances. The adhesive coated film elements need not be precut to the exact length needed for the staffs; they can be longer originally (or continuous) and can be easily hand-cut to the desired length directly on the film base 19, as with a hand-held razor blade.

After the staffs have been laid down onto the film base, individual film elements bearing the clef symbols 22 (FIG. 2) 23, time signatures 24, bar lines 26, rehearsal numbers and boxes, and system grouping brackets 27, are placed on the staffs. Following this, symbols for quarter notes 28, half notes, and whole notes 29, and combinations (e.g. common chords) and rests (e.g. 31, 32) are laid down in the appropriate positions, followed by accidentals 33, 34, flags 36, beams 37, line extensions, ledger lines, accents 38, and so on.

Often the score contains three or more adhesive-coated elements one on top of another. FIGS. 3 and 4 illustrate the successive steps used in making up such scores. These figures also show some of the symbol-bearing film elements in isolation, but aligned with the elements on which they are to be placed in the next step of the composing process.

In the procedure illustrated in FIG. 3, the following film elements are placed successively onto the film base carrying the staff element 21:

(a) An element 49 having a quarter note symbol, including a vertical line 51 extending from the notehead 52;

(b) An overlapping element 53 having two adjacent noteheads 54, 56 and a vertical line 57, which line is positioned by the compositor directly over the line 51 of the underlying element so as to give the appearance of a single continuous line; then (0) An overlapping element 58 having a flag 59 including a vertical line 61, the latter being positioned by the compositor directly over the lines 51 and 57 so as to give the appearance of a single continuous line; then (d) An overlapping element 62 having a symbol for a flat 63 positioned by the compositor adjacent to notehead 51; then (e) An overlapping element 64 having a dot 66.

Another illustration of typical overlapping is found in FIG. 4 where the staff element 21 carries the following:

(a) Three elements 49 (here designated 49a, 49b and 49c) each having a notehead 52a, 52b or 520 and an upwardly extending vertical line 51a, 51b or 510;

(b) An overlapping element '67 having line 68 which line is positioned by the compositor so that this line extends, as a ledger line, horizontally, passing just over the center of notehead 52a;

(c) An overlapping element 69 having a pair of parallel beams 71, 72 which element is placed at a slant to join the vertical lines 51a, 51b, 51c and is then manually razorcut tothe exact length desired (e.g. along lines 73, 74 ending precisely at lines 51a and 510) after it has been manually placed at the desired position over elements 49a, 49b and 490;

(d) An overlapping element 76 manually placed so that its straight line symbol 77 is in alignment with line 51a so as to fill the space between beams 71, 72; after this element has been so positioned, it is then manually razor-cut along a line 78 so that it does not extend above beam 72;

(e) An overlapping element 79 carrying a phrase mark or slur 81, which is placed so that it extends over the elements 49a, 67, 49b, 49c. Sharps, fiats, accidentals, rests, etc. could also be added to the above combination, for example.

The presence of the pressure-sensitive adhesive makes it possible for the compositor to position these symbols accurately (being guided by the lines of the graph paper) and to correct any errors in the placing of a symbol. A particularly suitable pressure-sensitive adhesive is a pressure-sensitive wax (e.g. a conventional soft beeswax adhesive). The wax adhesive does not stick to the fingers and it has only a limited tackiness so that the removal and shifting of a misplaced symbol can be effected very easily by hand. By means of a well known type of ad-. hesive wax coater (e.g. a Goodkin adhesive wax coater), this material may be melt-coated onto a sheet of transparent film (e.g. of 2-5 mil thick cellulose acetate or polystyrene) carrying a large number of the symbols (e.g. sheet 83, FIG. 5) following which the coated sheet may be cut into a corresponding number of individual film elements. This melt-coating operation yields a coated film having a relatively cloudy and non-uniform streaky layer of wax. Thus, a correspondingly cloudy, streaky image is visible through the coated film when it is laid directly onto an object, such as the printed text of a US patent, and the text is usually quite illegible through the coated film when it is a short distance (e.g. one or two inches) away from the film. Typical wax coatings for use in this invention are soft and of low strength; the wax can usually be easily removed, as by scraping with the fingernail, from the sheet on which it is coated.

FIG. 7 illustrates (incompletely, since it is a drawing,

not a photograph) the effect on the blackness of the symbol (here a notehead 52), as viewed by reflected light, when another streaky wax-coated film element (here designated 82.) is placed over it. This effect is also shown in FIGS. 3 and 4 by the cross-hatching of the portions of the black symbols that have been overlapped.

Despite the cloudiness and streakiness of the adhesive layer and the presence of a multiplicity of adhesivecoated film elements one on top of the other, our method yields printed scores of outstanding clarity and sharpness. The fact that multiple overlapping is permissible makes it possible to use fairly large, easily handled film elements, and to use film elements of indefinite length which may be easily cut directly in place; that is, there is no need for concern about the fact that the large size or irregular shape will necessarily increase the chances that overlapping of film elements will occur. Typically, the standard film elements (other than the large statf elements 21) will be more or less rectangular in shape and, for example, their sizes may be about /2 x 1 inch (for the notes), A x /2 inch (for the accidentals and rests), or /2 x 20 inches (for slurs, etc.), and only a minor portion of each element will be occupied by its musical symbol, the remainder being blank.

After a page of the musical score has been physically created on the film base 19, this base with its attached symbols is removed from the light board '12 and placed on a light board 84 (FIG. 6) of a second light box 86 whose construction is similar to that of the first one 9. The second light board 84 is mounted in front of a camera 87, most preferably with the plane of the light board (and of the film base 19) parallel to the planes of the lens 88 and sensitive film 89 of the camera. A photograph is then made of the musical score, using the light from the light sources 91 in the box 86, at a considerable reduction in linear dimension (preferably a 4:1 linear reduction, amounting to a 16:1 area reduction, using light trans mitted through the film base. We have found that the light need not be intense and that long exposures may be employed. Thus, for a rectangular light board 84, 4' high x 5' wide, a total of 200 watts of cool white fluorescent light in the light box with an exposure time of 22 seconds, has given excellent results, (e.g. with Ortholith film in the camera). No sign of the visible streakiness and cloudiness imparted by the adhesive layer and by deposits of wax on the base film is found on the picture taken by the camera; apparently, the long exposure has the effect of burning out these defects. Also, there is no sign of bleeding into the dark symbols, which are sharp and clear. And, most important, despite the presence of a whole succession of symbol-bearing film elements one on top of another, at different distances from the film base, the picture shows no sign of the shadows which would be present if front-lighting instead of back-lighting were employed. Also, the light intensity required in order to obtain an equivalent contrast is much less with back-lighting as employed in this invention, than with front-lighting. The photography may be carried out in the dark or in a room with ordinary lighting.

After the photograph (a negative) has been made, it can be used (in the conventional manner employed for line drawings and printed material) to make a printing plate from which the score can be printed in the usual fashion. Conveniently, an offset printing plate is produced, without the use of a halftone screen. Also, using offset plates of a type known to the art, a printing plate can be produced directly by using a positive Working sensitized plate instead of the silver halide emulsion-coated photographic film and then suitably developing the exposed plate.

It is often desirable to have a proof of the score before the actual printing is done. The system of this invention makes it possible to obtain such a proof very quickly and cheaply by using a xerographic plate of well knoWn type in the camera, instead of the usual emulsion-coated photographic film, and then reproducing the image on the exposed plate in the manner conventionally employed in xerography. (An offset printing plate can also be obtained directly by exposing a suitable xerographic paper plate in the camera.) Alternatively, a positive proof can be obtained quickly from the conventional photographic negative by known techniques (e.g. transfer of the image directly to a positive, in known manner, as with Polaroid film).

The terms light and photographing are used herein in their broad senses to denote activating radiation which may be invisible (such as ultraviolet light, infrared light, and radiation of higher and lower frequency) and the process of reproducing an image substantially opaque to such radiation by the action of such radiation on a radiation-sensitive reproducing material (i.e. in photography by xerography) In practice, it has been found most efficient to use two people, a layout man and a compositor, for the physical creation of the musical score on the transparent film base. The layout man, skilled in the overall layout and the calculations of the proper positions of the various musical symbols, marks in the essential intervals (e.g. the bar lines and the positions of certain significant notes) directly onto the film base or the staff elements in a color which is at the high frequency end of the spectrum (as with a blue crayon). The less skilled compositor then places the individual notes and other symbols onto and adjacent to the staffs, following the rough copy before him and guided by the intervals which have been marked previously by the layout man. The blue crayon marks are not visible on the photograph since they permit sufficient of the activating light to pass through them. It will be understood, of course, that much of the skill of the layout man can be programmed into a computer in known manner which may then be employed for giving an indication of the spacing of the essential intervals so that the symbols on the staffs fill the entire length of each staff.

For best results, the symbols on the film elements should be quite opaque. Excellent results have been obtained when the symbols are drawn by the hand with India ink, several times (e.g. 4 times) larger than the size they are to have on the film elements and then photographed with a corresponding size reduction; thus, the symbols may be originally drawn some 16 times larger than the size they will have in the finally printed sheet music. A single hand-drawn symbol can be photographed repeatedly (with the same size reduction, e.g. A in each case) onto a large number of spaced locations on a sheet of film, and, as previously described, the resulting sheet bearing many spaced symbols may be waxed and then cut to form the individual film elements. The symbols may also be put onto the film (e.g. onto clear polystyrene or cellulose acetate or other plastic sheet material) by silk-screening or offset printing, if desired, and may be printed in red (highly opaque to light capable of sensitising a photographic emulsion) instead of in black. The printing or silk-screening techniques are preferred, especially since there is no residue of a. photographic emulsion on the film. The elements may be made so cheaply that they are discarded after a single use.

The film elements may also carry whole words, e.g. the words (or their abbreviations) repeatedly used in musical scores, such as largo, presto, poco, or sost. Other word such as titles or lyrics can be placed on transparent film elements individually when needed, as by the use of such photo-lettering devices as the Filmotype or We have also found that efficient physical composing is aided when the symbol elements are filed in trays, in a definite order, by categories, for use by the compositor in the same order. The compositor may thus work first with the symbols in one row of trays, then put in the symbols from the next row, and so forth. For example, one row (for use primarily by the layout man) may contain a series of trays containing clefs, time signatures, bar lines rehearsal numbers and boxes therefor, and system grouping brackets, while the second row may contain quarter notes, half notes, whole notes, and combinations (such as common chords) as well as all rests (including bar rests). The third row may contain such symbols as accidentals (and with parentheses), flags, beams, line extensions, ledgers, and accents. The fourth row may contain standard symbols for musical dynamics (including words, letters and lines, e.g. lyrics, and miscellaneous words). The fifth row may contain such symbols as those for pedal and cut-off, fermata, 8va, repeat marks, comma and fingering numbers, while the sixth row may contain slurs in all the various lengths needed; for long slurs, combinations of elements providing the middle sections and the end sections, respectively, of the slur may be used by the compositor.

It will be understood that the film base 19 carrying the musical score need not be removed from the first light board 12. Instead, a camera may be mounted in position to photograph the musical score while it is on that board. In this case, it is desirable to remove the graph paper 18 prior to photography. However, by choice of lighting in the light box 9, the photography may be done with the graph paper (e.g. blue-lined paper) in place; for example, the light box 9 may have two lighting systems, one giving a relatively dim light for use during the setting up of the film elements to form the musical score and the other giving a stronger, brighter light for use in the photographing step.

The technique of this invention is useful even in combination with a computer-printer programmed so as to photoprint the noteheads and bars in proper position in justified arrangement (i.e. in an arrangement filling the whole staff from end to end, with predetermined margins, in a generally uniform standardized spacing of the noteheads), on a transparent film base, the staffs being also printed by the computer or supplied separately as by pre-printing on the film base. The programming of a computer to perform these functions is well within the skill of the art. The placing of the more sophisticated elements, such as flags, beams, slurs, line extensions, etc., may then be done by hand by the compositor, using the adhesive coated elements directly on the computer-printed transparent material (preferably mounted on top of graph paper on a light board), after which the set-up may be photographed, on a reduced scale, all exactly as described above. Since in most of the musical scores the same standard spacing of the staffs is entirely suitable, a film base having pre-printed staffs (and clefs) thereon may also be used in an otherwise entirely manual (i.e. noncomputer) composing operation; the staffs and clefs may be printed on the underside of the film base. Alternatively, the film elements having the staff symbols (and clefs and even key signatures) may be adhered to the underside of the film base so that the staffs are visible through said film base, and the other adherent film elements may be manually placed on the upper side of the film base without physically contacting the staff symbols. With these arrangements the adherent film elements may be quickly and easily removed from the tough, relatively stiff film base (e.g. of 0.007 inch Mylar), after the photographing of the desired score has been completed, by merely scraping the upper surface of the film base with a suitable blade, leaving the film base (having the staff symbols on its underside) ready for use in the physical creation of another score.

Undesired adhesive Wax deposits may be removed with a solvent (e.g. 'a petroleum hydrocarbon solvent such as Varnolene) or with hot (e.g. boiling) water.

Although the present invention has been described with reference to particular embodiments and examples, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that variations and modifications can be substituted therefor without departing from the principles and true spirit of the invention. The abstract given above is for the convenience of technical searchers and is not to be used for interpreting the scope of the invention or claims.

What is claimed is:

1. A process of reproducing a music score which comprises manually arranging on a light-transmitting base a plurality of light-transmitting elements carrying opaque musical symbols to produce an arrangement having the staif lines, notes and other symbols of the score and in which these are a plurality of said symbol-carrying elements in overlapping relationship, and then photograph ing the arrangement on a reduced scale with a camera on one side of the arrangement and a light source on the opposite side of the arrangement so that the light passes through said base and through a multiplicity of said overlapping elements, to produce a photographic reproduction.

2. A process as in claim 1 in which said symbol-carrying elements are coated With a pressure-sensitive adhesive of low tack.

3. A process as in claim 1 in which said symbol-carrying elements are coated with a pressure-sensitive soft wax adhesive which forms a cloudy layer on said elements.

4. Process as in claim 3 in which said layer is streaky.

5. Process as in claim 1 in which said coated elements include beam-forming lines for joining the vertical lines of the notes, and including the steps of positioning these beam-forming elements in the desired relationship to the vertical note lines with their beam-forming lines extending past the note lines and cutting said elements While so positioned to terminate said beam-forming lines where they meet said vertical note lines.

6. Process as in claim 1 in which said manually arranging is done while light is transmitted through said base to a human compositor while the compositor is manually positioning said elements and through a light-transmitting layer have closely spaced vertical rulings for guiding said compositor in positioning said elements.

7. Process as in claim 1 in which said manually arranging is done while light is transmitted through said base to a human compositor while the compositor is manually positioning said elements, While said base is in a plane making an angle of about 10 to 30 to the vertical.

8. Process of claim 1 and including the steps of making a printing plate from saidphotographic reproduction and printing the score from said plate.

9. Process as in claim 1 in which in said manually arranging step a plurality of light-transmitting elements are positioned on said base with edges of said elements being spaced from, and being out of alignment with, the edges of adjacent elements, said elements being positioned at varying heights above said base owing to said spacing, said nonalignment and said overlapping relationship.

10. Process as in claim 1 in which said symbol-carrying elements include elements carrying musical note symbols, and in which, during said manual arranging, said notecarrying elements are placed so as to lie over a surface of a light-transmitting underlying member, said process including the step of marking said surface to indicate the spacing of said note-carrying elements for the particular score which is being arranged, said marking being effected before the note-carrying elements are placed in position over said surface, said marking being effected in a visible color which is substantially transparent to said light so that said marking will not be visible in said photographic reproduction.

11. Process as in claim 10 in which said color is blue.

12. An apparatus for reproducing a musical score which comprises a flat planar light board which transmits and diifuses light, a light transmitting sheet, carrying a plurality of musical stalls mounted on one face of said light board, a light source to supply light for transmission through said light board from its opposite face, and a plurality of flat light-transmitting elements having opaque musical symbols and having a light-transmitting pressure-sensitive adhesive of 10W tack on one side, adapted to be manually arranged on said plastic sheet by a human compositor, said lightitransmitting sheet being of polyethylene terephthalate and said adhesive being a cloudy wax layer, and there being a light-transmitting sheet having closely spaced vertical and horizontal lines for guiding said compositor in the operation of manually arranging said symbol-bearing elements.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS Thimme 95-85 Greenstone 95-85 Von Der :Linden 95-85 Heintz 95-85 Krauter 95-85 Bernhard 95-85 Cohen 95-85 Murphy 95-85 Stasikewich 95-85 NORTON ANSHER, Primary Examiner 15 RICHARD M. SHEER, Assistant Examiner 

